Good editorial web video often works with a simple and authentic idea - 50 People, One Question by Benjamn Reece most definately falls into this category. Moreover it comes with beautiful cinematography.

See the NY, Brooklyn and London edition in the Vimeo channel. If you’d like to know more about the cinematography of the videos check this Blog entry.

“Cine-Fils.com is an online interview magazine focussed on interviews with international filmmakers. It is our aim to provide exclusive video interviews with internationally known filmmakers concentrating on a special subject.”

Nils is waiting… you can watch him live… and communicate with him… while he is still waiting…for the new german IKEA catalogue. Very nice integration of fullscreen flash website, live video streams, twitter and old-fashioned phonecalls by german agency Nordpol.

Gestalten.tv creates a broad range of documentaries, interviews and features that introduce Gestalten related subjects alongside individuals, projects and companies that are vanguards of visual culture.”

I think specialized channels with a clear profile and high quality content will become quite succesfull soon. Concerning New Art TV, I’m very curious what’s their business model. As far as I understand they only distributing the cotent from their own website. I’m going to write the makers and email to find out more.

…and once again, all the great photos in this entry are made by the very talented Anne Helmond!

And on yet another rainy morning in Amsterdam (not surprising, you get used to it after a while!), full of curiosity and hopes for the day, I went to the second day of the Video Vortex - Responses to YouTube conference. I was hoping that today would be more fruitful than yesterday, and indeed, what a pleasant surprise! Well, call me selfish, but instead of giving a general overview I will focus on the session that was the most interesting for me personally: Curating Online Video.

On a rainy morning in Amsterdam (that demanded lots of coffee!), the Video Vortex - Responses to YouTube Conference was kicked off at Club 11. I will be blogging on the conference for movingweb, but I was also there because I have been involved with the project through my work at the Netherlands Media Art Institute where we made an exhibition with the same title and related topics. Well, the program of the conference is quite extensive, and I was very disappointed by some of the presentations today (that seemed unprepared, unfocused, had nothing new to say…a total contrast with the first Video Vortex conference in Brussels!). So I will focus on the gems of today’s presentations!

Houyhnhnms.tv is a new community for web video creatives. Very nice design and good performance. I like the idea of the integrated quality control. Every uploaded work stays on the site for one week. If it doesn’t get a public voting of 4 out of 10 points, the work gets deleted.

“At Houyhnhnms we have decided to go for a thrilling opportunity:
Create a community of creators with TV format.
A television which grows directly on inspiration.
A place to experiment new concepts for a new audiovisual market.
An environment to share the most authentic audiovisual dreams, with no need for intermediaries.”

The first episode shows two guys and their efforts to get some telephone numbers. After every episode there’s a mission for the viewers, which they are supposed to tape and upload it as a video answer.

As Chris from NewTeevee notes, it’s seems like a weird idea, to run a web tv station that only shows commercials. Well, at first there might be some usage for Firebrand for people from the ad industry to stay up to date. For other audiences I’m sceptical. Here in Germany commercials have a rather negative image, but I assume in the U.S. viewers haven’t so much reservations to consume ads as enterainment.

Still, it sounds really strange to me when I read their manifesto:“We submit, with rare exception, that they’re the best stuff on TV. In under a minute you get the best diirectors, the sickest special effects, the funniest writers - what is not to love?”